Denying the rumors of "Didi mergers and acquisitions" and introducing Zhou Hang, Cao Cao Travel is paving the way for new financing?

Per reporter: Cui Zhiming Per editor: Pei Jianru

Cao Cao, who has been silent for a long time, has recently been widely concerned by public opinion because of the news that he is going to be acquired by Didi.

According to this news, a number of Didi employees have recently joined Cao Cao Chuxing, including Gong Xin, who served as the general manager of the Didi Chauffeur Business Department and was responsible for the driving, chauffeur and regional online ride-hailing business, as the CEO of Cao Cao Chuxing, according to which some media speculated that Didi intends to acquire Cao Cao Chuxing at the appropriate time.

In this regard, the Daily Economic News reporter asked the relevant person in charge of Cao Cao Travel for verification, but as of press time, it has not been commented.

However, in an interview with Securities Times, Cao Cao Travel said: "The rumor is false news, and Cao Cao Travel does not have any intentions or actions related to this." This month, Cao Cao Travel will have new business development actions. ”

In the second echelon, Cao Cao Travel will launch new financing?

In the online ride-hailing market, Cao Cao Travel is still in the second echelon of the industry.

According to the data given by the China Internet Network Information Center, in the first half of last year, the mainland online ride-hailing has covered more than 400 cities, with a total order volume of more than 4.31 billion orders, while Cao Cao Travel is currently online in more than 60 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, etc., and too many cities have not yet been covered. According to the data provided by the mobile Internet data service provider QuestMoblie, whether on the passenger side of the travel APP or on the driver side, Cao Cao Travel's daily active data (DAU), monthly active data (MAU), and single-day per capita usage time data are in the second echelon of the industry, and there is still a long distance compared with the industry leader Didi Chuxing.

Image source: Screenshot of Soochow Securities Research Report

At present, the user scale of the online ride-hailing market has been relatively stable, and the user ceiling of the entire market has begun to appear, whether it is the industry's only first-echelon player Didi Chuxing, or Cao Cao Chuxing, T3 Travel (Nanjing Lingxing Technology Co., Ltd.), Meituan Taxi (Shanghai Lutuan Technology Co., Ltd.) and many other second-tier players are carrying out "zero-sum game" in terms of user scale: that is, the number of users increased by their own companies is basically the number of users reduced by industry opponents.

In fact, it has been proved that Didi Chuxing, which controls the market pattern, has been well controlled in terms of user loss, and how Cao Cao Chuxing finds new development space has also been concerned by the industry.

Recently, Cao Cao Travel has made major adjustments to its senior management. According to Qixinbao information, at the end of March, The operating entity of Caocao Travel, Youxing Technology (Hangzhou Youxing Technology Co., Ltd.), updated the company's management change record, Liu Jinliang, founder of Caocao Travel, was changed from chairman to director, Li Donghui, CEO of Geely Holdings (Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd.), stepped down as the director of the company, Zhou Hang, founder of Yizhi Travel, succeeded as the new chairman, Zhang Quan, an executive of Geely, succeeded as the director of the company, and the financial person in charge was changed from Zang Luoqi to Zhao Ke.

Behind the adjustment of senior management personnel, is Cao Cao Travel brewing a new strategic layout? In this regard, some insiders speculate that Cao Cao Travel's recent actions are paving the way for new financing and even IPOs. Ding Daoshi, an Internet critic and executive director of the Speedway Research Institute, said in his published article, "When Zhou Hang joined Cao Cao Travel, there were rumors in the market that 'Didi acquired Cao Cao Travel', and it is self-evident who released this rumor, with the purpose of raising the valuation of Cao Cao Travel and creating momentum for its subsequent capital actions." It can be predicted that in the near future, Cao Cao Travel will have further financing plans, and even catch up with the good window period, and it is not inevitable to sprint for an IPO. ”

In September last year, Cao Cao Travel just completed a Series B financing totaling 3.8 billion yuan. Qixinbao information shows that in addition to Geely Holdings, the investors of the B round of financing also include the Agricultural Bank of China (601288. SH) owns ABC International (ABC International Holdings Limited), Soochow Securities (601555. SH) is a number of state-owned background companies such as Soochow Innovation Capital (Soochow Innovation Capital Management Co., Ltd.), City Investment Capital (Suzhou City Investment Capital Holding Co., Ltd.), Suzhou Xiangcheng Fund (Suzhou Xiangcheng Fund Management Co., Ltd.) and so on. Many unicorn companies have completed their IPOs within a year or two after obtaining financing from state-owned assets.

For the above speculation, as of the press release, Cao Cao's response to travel is "no comment".

Landing new business aiming at the "power exchange track"

Although at the capital level, Cao Cao Travel is tight about its future plans, in the field of power exchange, Cao Cao Travel is quietly laying out. "This month, Cao Cao Travel will have new business development actions. This business is mainly carried out in the field of new energy vehicle power exchange. Cao Cao travel related personnel told the "Daily Economic News" reporter.

It is understood that Cao Cao Travel and related partners have been laying out around the "power exchange travel of new energy vehicles" for some time. Cao Cao travel related personnel revealed to the "Daily Economic News" reporter that The cooperative car company of Cao Cao Travel is Geely Automobile (00175. HK) owned by The Blue Car brand. Cao Cao Chuxing's first new energy vehicle is Ruilan Automobile's Maple Leaf 80V model; Ruilan Automobile's latest power replacement model, Maple Leaf 60S, will also be operated through Cao Cao Travel's platform first. The model may be operating while accumulating experience and data for the introduction to the civilian market.

Ruilan Automobile is a "power exchange travel brand" launched by Chongqing Ruilan Automobile, a joint venture established by Geely and Lifan Technology (Group) Co., Ltd., which has completed the industrial and commercial registration procedures on January 24 this year.

The partner of Cao Cao Travel's intelligent substation is Geely Technology (Geely Technology Group Co., Ltd.). As of the end of March this year, Geely Technology's intelligent substations have been gradually landed in Chongqing, Hangzhou, Jinan, Zibo and other places, with more than 1,000 substations signed nationwide.

It can be seen that the layout of Cao Cao Travel in the field of power exchange is inseparable from the travel closed-loop ecosystem that Geely Holdings is focusing on. In fact, as early as 2017, Geely Automobile began to invest in the research and development of the power exchange mode, and its R & D personnel exceeded 1,000 people, conducted more than 30,000 related experiments, and had more than 1,000 patents. On September 16, 2020, Geely took the lead in landing the first substation in The New Area of Re-Liangjiang, which can serve 1,000 trains per day at a single station. Up to now, Geely Technology Group has signed more than 1,000 substations across the country, and plans to achieve the goal of operating 5,000 intelligent substations worldwide by 2025.

However, it has to be mentioned that new energy vehicles have not yet promulgated industry standards in the field of power exchange, and the difficulty is that the technology update speed of the power battery industry is relatively fast and the battery standards of various companies are widespread, and it is difficult to integrate a universal power exchange platform.

On March 18 this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Key Points for Automobile Standardization Work in 2022", proposing that in terms of new energy vehicles, it will accelerate the construction and improvement of the electric vehicle charging and replacement standard system, and promote the formulation of standards for pure electric vehicles such as on-board power exchange systems, power exchange general platforms, and power exchange battery packs.

Therefore, it is foreseeable that there is still a long way to go in the industry integration in the field of power exchange, and Cao Cao Travel plays an important export role in the manufacturing capacity of relevant car companies in Geely's closed-loop ecology.

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